Lead, Implementation

Room To Read; Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur, Patna, Gaya; On-site; INR 1,200,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Job summary

Room to Read in India seeks a Lead, Implementation to oversee state-level operations, ensure government relations, and drive timely program delivery across field offices.

You will manage staffing, procurement, logistics, and coordination with country office teams to strengthen literacy programs and measure impact.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in education, social sciences, management or equivalent.
• Minimum 12 years of relevant experience and 5+ years of management experience.
• Experience in community engagement/mobilization.
• Command of local language preferred.

Responsibilities

• Strengthen government relations and institutionalize RtR programs at the state level.
• Prepare strategic plans and align with RtR Vision plans for the state.
• Organize consultations with Government to strengthen systems and position RtR as a thought leader.
• Build evidence to support policy/practice changes with robust data.
• Coordinate with RtR country and OPS to develop proposals and reports.

Education

Master's in education/social sciences/management or equivalent

Job description

World Change Starts with Educated Children

Important: All applicants must be legally eligible to work in the country where the position is located. Room to Read is not able to provide sponsorship.

Job Summary

The Lead, Implementation is responsible for Room to Read s operations in a geographic area, a state in this case. The Lead, Implementation is primarily responsible for ensuring government relations at state level, timely and effective implementation of programs at the field office, including implementation, spending, hiring, local procurement, inventory management, distribution and logistical support. The position is required to take initiative for project management, improving work approaches, partnerships, selection of projects sites, and ensuring adequate staff to work at the field level. They will work to strengthen coordination and collaboration within teams and across all CO (Country Office) program teams, maintaining and ensuring constructive communication, building team morale within individual teams and contributing to a positive working environment. Lead, Implementation will report to the Principal Lead, Implementation and will have dotted line reporting to various stakeholders from the Country Leadership Team. The entire state team will report to Lead, Implementation.

Responsibilities

System strengthening and system integration

• Working closely with State officials in ensuring government system strengthening and institutionalization of RtR programs in the states.
• Preparation of overall strategic plan, basis local context and RtR Vision plan for the respective state and continuously reviewing the same.
• Organizing various discussions/consultations with Government to work towards system strengthening and positioning RtR as a thought leader in Literacy program.
• Building body of evidence that can push appropriate policy/practice changes backed by robust evidence.
• Support INCO Ops in proposal development and country growth plan as needed

External Coordination, branding, and Networking

• Attends to donor affairs including hosting donor and project site visits in collaboration with programs staff.
• Develop and lead media advocacy plan for the state.
• Assist RtR communication team in promotion of RtR programs through active media liasioning in state in accordance with the strategy, policies and guidelines of RtR.
• Scanning of education landscape in the state and positioning RtR as a thought leader through strategic management
• Take lead in dissemination of program results, sharing program report to government and other agencies in suggestions with OPS team.
• Meets regularly with local government representatives, NGO partners, school administrators and parent groups to represent RtR.
• Promotes and protects the reputation of Room to Read in external settings, ensuring that the organization s experience and expertise is well communicated and consistently presented, and that we are looked upon as a professional Education organization.

Management and Coordination

• Ensures efficient and effective coordination across all elements of the Literacy Program.
• Supervises and oversees the work of the field staff and is responsible for optimizing their productivity through effective management and leadership techniques (i.e., coaching/advising).
• Ensures staff are consistently complying and adhering to policies, procedures and guidelines articulated in the CO handbooks and facilitates the dissemination of information to all staff members to promote transparency.
• Supports staff through consultation with CO-level technical team to regularly assess staff capacity building needs.
• Ensures the performance management process is well-planned and conducted in a timely for all field staff. This includes setting performance goals, conducting progress check-ins, providing feedback, conducting year-end appraisals, and making recommendations for staff development and career advancement.
• Collaborates with Human Resources to handle recruitment and training of staff according to need.
• Leads and facilitates field staff in bi-weekly or monthly meetings to review progress against plans, find solutions to problems, share lessons learned, exchange expertise across programs, and to motivate and encourage teamwork.
• Ensures that field-staff are aware of and understand the programs goals and objectives, working approaches and methodology, and have all necessary information related to annual plans, targets, and implementation calendars.
• Conducts regular field visits to monitor and verify the programs progress and impact, understand the challenges, and needs of stakeholders and suggest appropriate solutions.
• Develop and implement plans for on-line material development in consultation with Country office as per the state specific context.
• Perform other tasks as assigned by the Principal, Implementation and Country Management Team.

Financial management

• Supervises fund disbursement, reviews and approves the field monthly and quarterly financial expenses in accordance with financial and purchasing policy and procedures.
• Timely submission of Cash forecast, booking of monthly bills and variance tracker
• Monthly tracking of all expense vis- -vis the budgets and flagging any deviations to concerned person.
• Coordinates the timely completion of annual planning and budgeting.
• Ensuring full utilization of respective budgets as per the financial guidelines.
• Co-ordinate and answer any audit queries for the state.

Reporting and Documentation

• Develops high quality quarterly report for distributing to partners, if applicable.
• Prepares high quality monthly and quarterly donor programmatic reports, coordinate with concerned Program, Finance and OPS department in INCO for finalizing and sharing the report on time.
• Ensuring high level of data quality for all reporting purposes.
• Preparation of appropriate case studies for submission to donors/communication team

Qualifications

• Master s in education/social sciences/management Social Work or equivalent.
• Minimum 12 years of relevant experience and 5+ years of management experience of related sector
• Prior experience of community engagement/ mobilization activities.
• Command of the local language is preferred.

Child Protection Principles

• Room to Read is committed to the education and welfare of children and protecting them from abuse and exploitation
• Room to Read has zero tolerance for child abuse and exploitation.
• All children have the right to be free from abuse and exploitation, including neglect, maltreatment, and physical, mental or sexual violence, injury or abuse.
• All children should be treated with respect and dignity.
• The well-being of the child is Room to Read s first priority when dealing with all identified or suspected cases of child abuse.
• Room to Read shall integrate child protection into all its organizational